Summary

George Storrs was a Second Advent preacher, abolitionist, editor, and writer, whose radical views on immortality and organization impacted the early development of Seventh-day Adventist belief and practice. His courageous stand for the doctrine of conditional immortality — that man does not possess an inherent immortal soul but receives eternal life only as a gift through Christ — became a cornerstone of Adventist theology. Through his influential Six Sermons and the pages of his periodical, the Bible Examiner, Storrs challenged one of the most deeply entrenched doctrines of Christendom and helped shape the beliefs of a new movement.

Early Life (1796–1814)

Storrs was born on December 13, 1796, in Lebanon, New Hampshire. His parents, Colonel Constant Storrs (1752–1828) and Lucinda Howe (1758–1839), married in the fall of 1780, during the American Revolution. The couple moved to Lebanon, which was then “almost a wilderness.” The family prospered, and Colonel Storrs “became a wealthy farmer.” Eight children were born into the family, seven boys and one girl, George being the youngest.

Lucinda Storrs was deeply concerned with the spiritual welfare of her children, always watching over their “religious instruction.” Constant Storrs, on the other hand, was more interested in making them successful in earthly pursuits. Lucinda would frequently gather her children around her, “particularly on the Sabbath,” and teach them about God. She was decidedly unwilling to leave her children’s eternal interests to the minister, “or any other less interested in their welfare than a Mother.”

The Congregationalist church, with its strongly Calvinist orientation of its ministers, constituted the dominant religious influence in Lebanon during Storrs’ childhood. Lucinda Storrs lamented the “tendency to fatalism” which permeated many of the sermons. She tried to “counteract” their influence by telling her children “unceasingly, that if they would seek the Lord he would be found of them.” Storrs would later write that “such pious labor was not lost.”

During his teenage years, from 1811 to 1813, Storrs became disillusioned with religion. It was the “most thoughtless period” of his life. He did not feel drawn to the many fire-and-brimstone sermons he heard dwelling on “the torments of hell.” Shortly before turning 18, however, he removed himself from “all excitement,” and began meditating in isolation. It was then that he became “so affected with a sense of the goodness of God,” that he decided to “pray daily.” Storrs told no one of the “revolution going on” within himself. His private spiritual struggle, which lasted for over a year, intensified with the death of his sister, Lucinda, on November 18, 1814, at the age of 22.

Conversion, Marriage, and Abolitionism (1815–1836)

In 1815, a revival spread through Lebanon. George Storrs, along with 20 others, joined the Congregational Church. Three years later, in 1818, Storrs married Harriet Waterman (1796–1824), a daughter of Colonel Thomas Waterman, “one of the most prominent men” in Lebanon. They were “happily married,” for they were “of like faith in Christ.” One daughter was born from this marriage, Laura Ann, who died in infancy. Harriet became ill in 1820, gradually growing weaker during the course of the next four and a half years and died on June 15, 1824.

During his wife’s illness, Storrs had been invited to hear a Methodist minister. Impressed, he invited the preacher to his house. The ensuing visits were a “source of comfort” to Storrs and his bedridden wife. Soon after Harriet’s death, he joined the Methodists. In 1825, he became a preacher in the “Methodist Traveling Connection,” traveling a circuit in conducting his ministry rather than being assigned a settled pastorate. That same year he married Martha Waterman (1800–1880), another daughter of Thomas Waterman. They had two children, George F. Storrs and Harriet W. Storrs.

In the 1830s Storrs was becoming more and more concerned with slavery. In his mind, Bible doctrine was perfectly connected with the freedom of the enslaved. Storrs’ preaching, therefore, naturally merged into a career of abolitionist lecturing, for both were founded upon Scripture. In 1835, Storrs received a letter from the Anti-Slavery Society in Northfield, New Hampshire, inviting him to deliver “an Anti-Slavery Sermon.” Storrs quickly wrote back to James Templeton, who had sent the invitation. “The captives MUST go free,” he wrote. “God is on our side.”

Arriving at Northfield, Storrs was warmly welcomed by “whole-hearted” abolitionists, but when he entered the meeting-house to preach, he noticed that the deputy sheriff had walked in, and was gazing “round the house.” After his sermon Storrs knelt for a prayer in which he prayed for the president of the United States, for Congress, and those held in slavery. He was about to pray for the slave-owners, when the sheriff stood up and arrested him mid-prayer, on charges that he was “a vagrant and an idler.” The event caused a sensation throughout New England. Some, turning to history, found Storrs’ outrageous arrest worthy of comparison to “the fires of persecution” of “the seventeenth century.” Even famous abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Elizur Wright took notice of the daring preacher, calling him a “powerful” lecturer, ready to “thunder” forth his convictions.

Storrs remained a Methodist traveling minister until 1836. His fervent abolitionist lectures struck many of the Methodist bishops as incongruent with Methodist doctrine. According to Storrs’ own account, the bishops “endeavored by every possible means to suppress the discussion” of slavery. True to his belief, Storrs nonetheless persisted in “lecturing and preaching” during the next three years, despite hostility. He became “impatient at the conservative tendency of the church” and determined never to “submit to leave” his Christian duty in the hands of “any body of men, however good they might be.” This led him to sever his connection with Methodism in 1840.

The “Endless-Torture Doctrine” and Conditional Immortality (1837–1844)

Storrs had never doubted that “man possessed an immortal soul” until 1837 when he read a pamphlet in which Philadelphian Henry Grew argued that the wicked did not endure endless torture in hellfire, but were rather completely annihilated. After careful examination over a period of years, Storrs became convinced by the biblical evidence. In the spring of 1841, he published An Inquiry: Are the Souls of the Wicked Immortal? In Three Letters. The following year, his well-known Six Sermons were published, expanding on the original argument for the non-immortality of the wicked.

After breaking with Methodism, Storrs moved his family to Albany, New York, in August of 1841, where he established a small church “on the principle of ‘receiving one another as Christ had received them.'” Storrs declared that “the Bible was the only creed — Christian character the only test.”

Calvin French, a Baptist minister who had recently become a Millerite, met with Storrs a few weeks after the publication of Six Sermons in 1842. Storrs was impressed with what he heard, and allowed French to preach in his nondenominational church called the “House of Prayer.” Becoming “partially convinced” of the premillennial Advent of Christ, Storrs invited Charles Fitch to come and “preach to the people” at Albany. A large tent was erected, and thousands flocked to the meetings. Fitch preached “the coming of the Lord” with “great power.” During Fitch’s time in Albany, Storrs “became settled” that Christ would soon appear. In the fall of 1842 Storrs left Albany to preach the premillennial Second Advent to wider audiences.

He revised his Six Sermons and published 15,000 copies in December of 1842, scattering them “all over the United States, at his own expense.” Also with his own funds, Storrs launched the Bible Examiner in 1843, initially published on an occasional basis, then regularly from 1847 to 1854. Its motto was “No IMMORTALITY, or ENDLESS LIFE EXCEPT THROUGH JESUS CHRIST ALONE.” The Six Sermons were circulated as far as England, where Storrs’ writings against the “endless-torture doctrine” provoked a debate, with writers on both sides of the issue citing the avant-garde American preacher.

In the spring of 1843, Storrs was invited to preach in Philadelphia, and thousands came out to hear him. He took the opportunity to print 2,000 extra copies of Six Sermons, distributing the material to the congregation. Joshua V. Himes, the leading promoter and organizer of the Second Advent movement, did not prevent Storrs from holding meetings together in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the fall of 1843. The meetings were a success, with more than 500 people converting to Millerism. Storrs remained in Cincinnati after the close of the meetings to edit the Western Midnight Cry.

In 1844, one prominent figure, Charles Fitch, declared his agreement with Storrs on “the state of the dead, and of the final doom of the wicked” in a letter of January 25, 1844. Fitch thus “was the only top leader in the 1843 movement to accept conditionalism and annihilationism in the 1840s.” But Miller, who had expressed his utter disdain for annihilationism as early as 1814, was led to make a public pronouncement against Storrs’ ideas in the May 1844 edition of the Midnight Cry: “I cannot be silent without dissenting from this any longer, it would be a crime against God and man. Therefore I disclaim any connection, fellowship, or sympathy with Br. Storrs’ views of the intermediate state, and end of the wicked.”

The Seventh-Month Movement and October 22

Storrs also became fully committed to the “seventh-month message” preached by Samuel S. Snow, designating October 22, 1844, as the date on which Christ was expected to return to earth. On October 3, 1844, Storrs wrote: “I take up my pen with feelings such as I never before experienced. Beyond a doubt, in my mind, the tenth day of the seventh month will witness the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven.”

One week later, on October 10, Storrs published a piece in the Midnight Cry that would become known as “Storrs’ Flat Rock.” In the article, he told an allegory of a “glorious and mighty prince” who promised to take all who trusted him to a “glorious country” — provided they waited on a “large flat rock” strung in the middle of the ocean. The real catch was that the people had to let their boats float away into the horizon — thus demonstrating their implicit trust in the prince’s promise. Then came the punchline: “Cut your ropes now, brethren; let your boats float out of sight; yea, make haste before the ‘sign of the Son of man appear.’ Then it will be too late. Venture now — and venture all.”

Scattered Adventism and Later Years (1845–1879)

On November 8, two-and-a-half weeks after the Millerite Disappointment of October 22, Storrs acknowledged, “I was wrong to preach the coming of the Lord on the tenth of the seventh month with the positiveness that I did.” He attributed his error to a “mere human influence, which I call Mesmerism.” He stressed, though, that he did not believe that it was wrong to have preached “the strong probability of the Lord’s coming at that time, and give the Scripture argument in favor of it.” Storrs concluded his “Confession” by declaring, “I am now looking daily for the coming of our Lord, and striving by grace, to be always ready for it.”

After 1844, Millerism splintered into factions. Storrs was one of the preeminent critics of organizing a new denomination, holding to the position he expressed in February 1844:

“Take care that you do not seek to organize another church. No church can be organized by man’s invention but what it becomes Babylon the moment it is organized. The Lord organized his own church by the strong bonds of love. Stronger than that cannot be made; and when such bonds will not hold together the professed followers of Christ, they cease to be his followers, and drop off from the body as a matter of course.”

During the 1850s Storrs’ Six Sermons continued to circulate by the thousands, contributing to sharpening division between the non-seventh-day observing Adventist groups over conditional immortality. In 1863, Storrs himself accepted the presidency of the Life and Advent Union, a “quasi-denomination” of those who held that the wicked dead would not be resurrected.

In addition to writing tracts and pamphlets, Storrs continued to edit the Herald until 1871. He then revived the Bible Examiner, issued monthly. In March 1879, physicians diagnosed him with an “abscess in the kidneys.” The condition improved in August, but worsened in September, rendering him unable to eat. Storrs’ daughter, Hattie, dismayed at her father’s suffering, told him, “father, it is too bad that you must suffer so.” Storrs replied, “no, my daughter, it is not too bad, but it is very bad; still I can bear it, the Lord helping me.” He died on December 28, 1879, at the age of 83. Interment took place on December 30, at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Legacy and Contribution

Seventh-day Adventist pioneer John Loughborough wrote that Storrs contributed to the “great second advent movement” in two key ways: First, Storrs’ unbounded enthusiasm “exerted a mighty influence,” leading early Adventists to fully commit to spreading the Second Advent message. Second, Storrs’ views on conditional immortality helped point early Seventh-day Adventism toward a key doctrine as the movement worked at constructing a firm biblical foundation.

Beyond these two points, Storrs also unwittingly helped the Sabbatarian Adventists establish their position on organization. They had shared Storrs’ hostility toward organization to a great extent. Co-founder James White, who worked hard for moderation of those views, would write that “those who drafted the form of organization adopted by S[eventh] D[ay] Adventists labored to incorporate into it, as far as possible, the simplicity of expression and form found in the New Testament.” Ironically, White’s description matched with Storrs’ ultimate goal, that of believers uniting under a simple, biblical gospel.

Key Quotes

“The captives MUST go free. God is on our side.” — George Storrs, letter to James Templeton, 1835

“I take up my pen with feelings such as I never before experienced. Beyond a doubt, in my mind, the tenth day of the seventh month will witness the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven.” — George Storrs, Midnight Cry, October 3, 1844

“Cut your ropes now, brethren; let your boats float out of sight; yea, make haste before the ‘sign of the Son of man appear.’ Then it will be too late. Venture now — and venture all.” — George Storrs, “Storrs’ Flat Rock,” Midnight Cry, October 10, 1844

“Take care that you do not seek to organize another church. No church can be organized by man’s invention but what it becomes Babylon the moment it is organized.” — George Storrs, Midnight Cry, February 15, 1844

“No, my daughter, it is not too bad, but it is very bad; still I can bear it, the Lord helping me.” — George Storrs, to his daughter Hattie, during his final illness, 1879